Uninstalling Drivers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Davej
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Davej

Have a Dell laptop that is acting a little odd. After installing the
OS and everything I learn that the drivers are supposed to be
installed in a particular order. Has anyone dealt with this issue?
Thanks.
 
Davej said:
Have a Dell laptop that is acting a little odd. After installing the
OS and everything I learn that the drivers are supposed to be
installed in a particular order. Has anyone dealt with this issue?
Click to expand...


You normally install motherboard drivers, video drivers, LAN drivers, and
any other built in device driver first, generally in that order. If you are
installing SCSI drivers you do that before you install the OS (XP and
earlier). And if you must choose between Legacy IDE mode or SATA mode you
need to do that before you load the OS too.
More detailed explanation of the issue would be helpful in getting
intelligent responses.
 
You normally install motherboard drivers, video drivers, LAN drivers, and
any other built in device driver first, generally in that order. If you are
installing SCSI drivers you do that before you install the OS (XP and
earlier). And if you must choose between Legacy IDE mode or SATA mode you
need to do that before you load the OS too.
More detailed explanation of the issue would be helpful in getting
intelligent responses.
Click to expand...

Well, the question is -- how can you look at a system and tell if the
drivers have been installed in the correct order -- and if they
weren't -- how would you fix that without a complete format and start
over?
 
Davej said:
Well, the question is -- how can you look at a system and tell if the
drivers have been installed in the correct order
Click to expand...

No, that isn't the question.

The question is, what does this mean?
 
Davej said:
Well, the question is -- how can you look at a system and tell if the
drivers have been installed in the correct order -- and if they
weren't -- how would you fix that without a complete format and start
over?
Click to expand...

boot into safe mode - uninstall any graphics, sound and network drivers that
have
been installed by you - dont worry about drivers that the OS install
automatically included.
then install motherboard drivers (if the manufacturer provides them) and
then video and then whatever....

sometimes the OS includes adequate drivers for the motherboard particularly
if its a Intel chipset board
and you just install the others.
 
No, that isn't the question.

The question is, what does this mean?
Click to expand...

The keyboard status LEDs remain on. The mute button doesn't work. The
power button **sometimes** doesn't wake the unit up without repeated
presses. It is as if the motherboard driver isn't working right.
 
Davej said:
The keyboard status LEDs remain on. The mute button doesn't work. The
power button **sometimes** doesn't wake the unit up without repeated
presses. It is as if the motherboard driver isn't working right.
Click to expand...

.... or there is something wrong with the keyboard. Those sound like
hardware inconsistencies to me rather than a driver problem.

It is a Dell laptop. Things break in LTs.

How well does everything on the keyboard work if you boot it up with
some live CD? That way nothing about your OS install or its drivers
matters.
 
TVeblen said:
You normally install motherboard drivers, video drivers, LAN
drivers, and any other built in device driver first, generally
in that order.
Click to expand...

That does seem normal, but what if one of the less basic drivers
steps on one of the more basic drivers.
More detailed explanation of the issue would be helpful in getting
intelligent responses.
Click to expand...

Definitely.
 
John Doe said:
That does seem normal, but what if one of the less basic drivers
steps on one of the more basic drivers.
Click to expand...
I guess that's where experience kicks in. You got to know your system and
your OS or you are looking up at the learning curve. I'm getting ready to
use W7, so I know I will soon be standing at the bottom of that hill. But it
beats the hell out of crosswords.
Often I will just load all the drivers on the MB disk (because it's too
damned much work to take it out and put it back in the slot ;-)) and then
the video. It has never made much of a difference either way. If one driver
steps on another I curse the coding gods and then uninstall both and
reinstall them the other way around!
 
You normally install motherboard drivers, video drivers, LAN drivers, and
any other built in device driver first, generally in that order. If you are
installing SCSI drivers you do that before you install the OS (XP and
earlier). And if you must choose between Legacy IDE mode or SATA
mode you need to do that before you load the OS too.
More detailed explanation of the issue would be helpful in getting
intelligent responses.
Click to expand...


Ok, at first I didn't think the Device Manager offered an Uninstall
option, but it does, but the problem I see now is figuring out which
drivers were supplied by the OS and which ones were added by Dell. I
know which Dell files I downloaded and executed but I don't know what
files were unpacked and installed. Maybe I can find that information
on the Dell site. Thanks.
 
Well, the question is -- how can you look at a system and tell if the
drivers have been installed in the correct order -- and if they
weren't -- how would you fix that without a complete format and start
over?
Click to expand...

I don't believe there's a "set to stone" requirement they are, though
granted there may be conflicts and the easiest way (to avoid the
programming kludge) could be to follow what's recommended. If not,
well, then there's ways to test for conflicts with the appropriate
"monitoring tools" -- namely what's being done to the registry and
where, if at all overlaps occur, and what programs are overwriting one
another with common system or same-named file and DLL links. Even
better yet is to have a known good config (factory install), same
provided driver installs (downloads available from some support
centers) -- last, there's always a sector-to-sector binary backup for
going in with whatever OS/drivers for compatibility issues, and
backing out with a restore should things get out of hand.

Did that with a Thinkpad ages ago -- where really nasty, nasty things
would happen to the HD. Being on a warrantee, I called IBM's support
center, curious why it would entirely blow-off the HD, requiring IBM's
support (LLF) format routine, at 8 or so hours, to even get back to
square one. The support guy I talked to screamed at me: "YOU DID
WHAT!!" -- after I told him I didn't want a Windows only system with
their utilities, and had reinstalled a different OS for efficiency.
No backup, though, so I had to do it all the "hard way" by figuring
out, myself, what address ranges were a likely culprit to upper memory
block (384k thingy between 640k and 1meg) "hardwired" to IBM's ROM for
accessing the HD. A-ha and thought so...once I excluded the area,
wasn't a problem.

I guess what the IBM guy was effectively trying to tell me, is that I
was taxing his expertise. Ages ago. ...nowadays they all pretty much
have professionally trained, nice people to talk to from faraway
places, such as India. Depending, and not necessarily to be
discounted. I was dumbfounded by Verizon's help links into Manila,
PI, where an 800-operative took control remotely, over the modem, to
fine tune programming for the modem's ROM. Except for when testing
things out, which got a little complicated, so she called her
supervisor -- whereupon he took one look at my system, grabbed the
horn away from her, (running voice simultaneously, I think I could
definitely hear him beginning to breath heavy over her shoulder before
that), to told me: "You're really such a smart guy. Why don't you go
and figure it out yourself."

Pretty smart guy, himself, I told him. Really enjoyed the experience
-- last thing I'd expected from Verizon. Usually I threaten them
first, in order to get someone's attention. :)
 
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